I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, as they say.
I can see both sides of the argument.
We have to ask, how long should unemployment be granted?
People unemployed for six months say they need more time to look and thus more extended benefits meanwhile.
Just a knee jerk reaction, six months seems a fairly acceptable limit for granting benefits.
But one year? Two? Three?
Seems with granting benefits for that long, over six months, would at some point bust any state budget.
That's a lot of benefit payments going out weekly.
Kind of like social security, which you pay into while employed, but what if the life expectancy grew to say 100 years? Two hundred years? And you actually only worked say 52 years as employed (age 18 - 70), but collect SS for 80+ years retired?
At some point the SS fund would go bust.
So with unemployment extensions, how long is too long?
If one never were to find a job, ever, should they continue to collect a monthly unemployment benefit until social security finally kicks in at age 66?
I could see the unemployed and looking for a similar job with similar income possibilities, while turning down offers not quite up to their expectations.
But after, say, three months or four months of looking and rejecting offers they feel unacceptable, at some point one must give in and accept something or anything offered.
How picky should you be and for how long?
And, the bottom line, should tax payers be held accountable beyond six months of looking and job shopping?
If nothing comes along, especially nothing you feel comparable to your previous employment, isn't it time to take anything offered?
Even if that might be holding down two entry level jobs flipping burgers?
That, vs unlimited unemployment benefits?
Somehow, at some point, a line has to be drawn.
If unemployment benefits were endlessly extended up to the age of retirement kicking in, well... Huston we have a problem.
And to me it seems this is exactly where we are headed.
Unlimited unemployment extensions up to social security kicking in at 66.
And as an lefty liberal, even I see a huge problem with unlimited unemployment benefit extensions.
Yes I have a personal story to add in, as usual.
A good friend from New York had been working import/export back in NY.
Made a six figure income.
Layer off, he relocated to the west coast.
The highest pay he was offered for similar employment living on the west coast was $36,000 a year.
Unacceptable to him. Totally unacceptable to him.
So he declined employment opting instead for unemployment.
I just can't feel sorry for him. I see this as unrealistic expectation.
Turing down a well paying job only because it did not march what he was earning back on the east coast.
I really have to wonder how many other long termed unemployed think this way?
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